The Marsh King’s Daughter – Elizabeth Chadwick

Selected from my Library Books To Read pile on the basis that the cover illustration might not be allowed into Iran (I go there for a fortnight at the start of May), The Marsh King’s Daughter was a quick read.

Set several centuries earlier than The Lady and the Unicorn, and in the lowlands of East Anglia it tells the story of a headstrong wool merchant’s daughter who runs away from the convent to which her stepfather consigns her, and ends up becoming a successful business women, trading in sheep, wool and cloth, travelling around England and to Europe. There’s the usual love story accompanying the history, and the Marsh King references are to King John‘s baggage train being lost in the treacherous quicksands of The Wash in 1216.

I fear that familiarity with Elizabeth Chadwick’s novels is at risk of breeding some kind of contempt, which I wouldn’t want as I do enjoy them – the books are well written and detailed, with good characters and plot; they’re just a bit too similar in the overarching tale of two people overcoming adversity to find love.